“Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”— William Wordsworth

Wisconsin nature photographer J. Marion Brown has been taking pictures since her kids were born, but became passionate about nature photography in the 1990s when she began camping with her family on the wooded property where they ultimately built a home, after years of testing it out first in tents. With her trusty Canon in hand, she has honed the practice of paying attention to a fine art (literally) as she catches glorious moments in nature the rest of us miss. Read More

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on trees, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”― F. Scott Fitzgerald

What began as an impulse last fall to go into the marsh to photograph the graceful movement of the withering cattails turned into an eight month project that now spans four seasons. I have appreciated the beauty of this marsh for years, but until I started to pay closer attention, I didn’t realize how many of its nuances and changes through the seasons that I had been missing. And I am sure there are countless more I have yet to catch, even now. Read More

A summer hailstorm kicked up yesterday afternoon, coming on quickly and with unexpected ferocity. As the hail grew larger, it fell faster, battering everything it touched. I don’t know why, but as I watched the storm, the tragic shootings earlier this month at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston came to mind.

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” —Mother Teresa

‘Tis a month before the month of May, and the Spring comes slowly up this way. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Spring in the marsh is about patience and attention to details. While elsewhere, the crocus, daffodils, tulips, and crabapples are in colorful profusion, spring has a much more austere arrival in the marsh.

Over the last month, I made four treks into the same wetlands I filmed this past fall and winter. I’ve always appreciated the beauty of the marsh, but have never paid as close attention to its chronology of changing seasons until I began this project. Looking for signs of new growth in early April felt like a needle-in-a-haystack search. I was sure that spring would mean the cattails would be bursting forth in green, or at least showing some bare signs of emerging from the ground anew. Silly me. Ironically, I found that this time of year, when everything is blooming outside the wetlands, the marsh cattails and grasses are actually more brittle and decayed than any other season I’ve witnessed yet.

I don’t know why I expected spring to burst forth from the center outwards, but I did. What I saw instead was that new growth seemed to be working its way in to the marsh from the fringes, from the treetops down and from the edges inward. Once again, Mother Nature showed me that what she can conjure up is far better than what I can imagine.

Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored. ― Oscar Wilde

“Weather kept them humble.” — Annie Proulx

Last Sunday, we had blue skies and bright sunshine that hinted at spring; by Tuesday, a snowfall. Though it was short-lived, for the better half of the day it appeared as if we’d gone back in time to December. I suppose that never knowing what to expect can make even the mighty feel humble.

This winter, none know this better than the residents of the U.S. East Coast who’ve gotten wave after wave of the kind of snowfall for which we’re better known here in Minnesota, the kind for which you need a yard-stick, not a ruler.

Putting on five layers of warm clothing (I’ve never been known to love the cold), I trekked in to the marsh near my home to catch the snowflakes on video, figuring this might (wishful thinking, perhaps) be their final appearance here for this season.

CREDITS: Music in the video is “Por Rosa” by Peter Walker, from a live performance in the studio of WFMU, made available in the creative commons through the freemusicarchive. Field recording during closing credits by Peter Caeldries is “January Sleet” shared via freesound.org. Filmed in the marsh behind The Marsh, Minnetonka MN.

“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.” — Hal Borland

Sitting on my front stoop in the early spring of 2009, I was playing my guitar on the first warm, sunny day of the season. Named “Little Girl,” my guitar is a far better instrument than I deserve. I had been sad when I discovered she had developed a long, narrow crack during the cold, dry months of winter, and I felt pretty negligent in tending to her properly. Read More

Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay. — Robert Browning

When fall begins, I always feel a tremendous burst of energy. Doesn’t everyone? I give the credit largely to the crisp air and the red, orange and yellow of the trees. It is hard not to feel buzzed on life with so much color surrounding you.

As the season begins to wane, there is a quiet transition between autumn and winter, a small sliver of time when it is neither one nor the other. The colors are muted but no less inspiring. The energy of the season shifts into low gear. While winter sometimes feels to me like a forced respite, the brief resting place at the tail end of fall is a choice, a reward before the season changes. Read More